door on its way across town to Union Square, and
thence to Greenwich Village, and so on down to the Hoboken Ferry.

Then I found myself on my own sofa, bending forward to pick up the
volume of Cyrano de Bergerac, which lay on the carpet at my feet. I sat
up erect and collected my thoughts as best I could after so strange a
journey. And I wondered why it was that no one had ever prepared a
primer of imaginary geography, giving to airy nothings a local
habitation and a name, and accompanying it with an atlas of maps in the
manner of the _Carte du Pays de Tendre_.

(1894.)

THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME

As the twelfth stroke of the bell in the tower at the corner tolled
forth slowly, the midnight wind blew chill down the deserted avenue,
and swept it clear of all belated wayfarers. The bare trees in the thin
strip of park clashed their lifeless branches; the river far below
slipped along silently. There was no moon, and the stars were shrouded.
It was a black night. Yet far in the distance there was a gleam of
cheerful light which lured me on and on. I could not have said why it
was that I had ventured forth at that hour on such a night. It seemed
to me as though the yellow glimmer I beheld afar off was the goal of my
excursion. Something within whispered to me then that I need go no
farther when once I had come to the spot whence the soft glare
proceeded.

The pall of darkness was so dense that I could not see the sparse
houses I chanced to pass, nor did I know where I was any more. I urged
forward blindly, walking towards the light, which was all that broke
the blackness before me; its faint illumination seemed to me somehow to
be kindly, inviting, irresistible. At last I came to a halt in front of
a building I had never before seen, although I thought myself well
acquainted with that part of the city. It was a circular edifice, or so
it seemed to me then; and I judged that it had but a single story, or
two, at the most. The door stood open to the street; and it was from
this that the light was cast. So dim was this illumination now I had
come to it that I marvelled I could have seen it at all afar off as I
was when first I caught sight of it.

While I stood at the portal of the unsuspected edifice, peering
doubtfully within, wondering to what end I had been led thither, and
hesitating as to my next step, I felt again the impulse to go forward.
At that moment tiny darts of fire, as it were, glowed at the end of